BrüFrou Comes Through With Food and Booze

July 17th, 2017 drumrboy22

BrüFrou was held on Sunday, July 16th this year at a new location on the Auraria Campus. BrüFrou focuses on beer and food pairings with local breweries and restaurants. The event had some notable improvements over previous years and we really enjoyed ourselves.

In previous years, BrüFrou took place at the Wings Over The Rockies Museum which is a great venue. I was concerned about this year’s event taking place outdoors on the Auraria Campus. It was a hot day and being on an open field could spell disaster. But, it was very well done. The VIP tent provided plenty of shade. Even non-attendees were able to take advantage of random tents placed throughout the field. Regardless, an outdoor event in the middle of Summer is probably not the best idea.

The larger venue allowed for a big stage where several bands performed throughout the day. The styles of music were perfect for this event ranging from bluegrass to jazz to EDM.

A new “virtual token” system allowed attendees to scan a token that was adhered to the bottom of their glass. This made it easy to walk around and try samples without fumbling for tickets. This token system seemed to work pretty well with few glitches. After the festival, attendees could log on and view the tastings they enjoyed. Attendees could re-load their tokens at one of several tents throughout the event if they ran out.

Several vendors had mixed cocktails made from beers coming from their partnering brewery. Black Project collaborated with Williams and Graham for a beer cocktail made of Dreamland, Leopolds Tart Cherry, Rittenhouse Rye and grapefruit zest. WeldWerks partnered with Social for a Summertime Sipper made of WeldWerks Key Lime Pie Berliner, pisoc, vodka, bitters, juices and nutmeg. The drink was super refreshing. Stranahan’s was also there pouring straight whiskey shots.

It’s impossible to have all of the pairings, but some of the notable ones we enjoyed included:

Great Divide Yeti with DAR Chocolate 90% dark chocolate with Ethiopian coffee (although, the chocolates melted quickly in the heat).

Odd13 Sheriff Shane Sherman the Solera Cyborg, a yet-to-be-released foeder aged beer, paired with River & Woods Japanese oyster shooter with a quail egg and beer infused Shiso. (This was my favorite pairing of the day, although a few people told me their quail egg was overcooked, so it was hit or miss)

Overall, it was a great event. While I’d like to see them move it back indoors, it was fantastic otherwise. The food and beer pairings were great, the entertainment was fantastic and the people were amazing.